LIVING WITH RESTRAINT

After Years As Gung-ho Cop, Former Deputy David Glisson Sits Anxiously

Something is missing in David Glisson. Could be the eyes that have
forgotten how to dance or the soft voice that fades away before it puts the
period at the end of a sentence. Could be the way he moves, carefully
measuring every step.

Nothing about this soft-spoken man hints that this was a lawman who thought
of police work as a family business, a lifer who wanted to be the first
officer through the door even when he didn't know what was on the other side.

Simply put, he was a cop.

That was Glisson's life for more than 20 years. He was a strutting member
of two elite units. He taught people to shoot but didn't have a gun at
home. He wore a badge but drew a line at wearing an earring. If the
telephone rang in the middle of the night, he always answered. This was
what he did and this was all he ever wanted to be.

He was a cop.

Putting this career in the past tense hurts him, but he knows he's no
longer a cop and, somewhere inside, accepts the fact he never will be
again. At age 47, he seems hollow and bruised, a man whose dreams were
rewritten in the time it takes two fingers to snap.

It's easy to trace these changes in this strapping sheriff's deputy to last
Dec. 10, the night Glisson shot Kenny Walker in the southbound lane of I-185.

Only there's more.

- - There was a heart attack that killed him three times.

- - There is the aneurysm that hides in his body.

- - There is the unborn grandson he wants to hold.

- - There is the fact that, even if he could, he isn't able to be the cop he
always thought he would be.

These are some of the things David and Becky Glisson wanted to talk about
when he agreed to an interview for the first time since the Walker shooting.

According to ground rules set by his attorney, Richard Hagler, questions
about that night were off limits. But the conversation in Hagler's office
still gave the Glissons a chance to deflect accusations leveled at the
father of four.

This was the couple's way to make Glisson more than a nameless officer with
a badge.

Born in Columbus

Glisson was born in Columbus and went to school at River Road Elementary,
then Daniel Junior High and Jordan High. He laughs at the adage that every
policeman and fireman in town went to Jordan.

"You were either a cop or you went to jail," he said.

As a young person he had two dreams: baseball and law enforcement. "And
since the Braves never called, you know where I ended up."

When his family got together it seemed like everybody had a badge. His
Uncle Bobby was both a Columbus police captain and a Muscogee County
sheriff's deputy, and three cousins were lawmen.

As a child, he would listen to their stories when they got together. "It
was like guys telling fishing stories," Glisson recalled.

After high school, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. He wasn't a flyer. He
was a lawman.

Back home, he was looking for a job when he got a call from then Muscogee
County Sheriff Jack Rutledge. Rutledge looked like a sheriff out of
Hollywood casting. He was big with a voice to match. He had a presence, as
a public official and as a public performer. Since he often sang at events
all over town, he was known as "The Singing Sheriff."

It was hard for people to say "no" to Rutledge, but Glisson did. He turned
Rutledge down and took a job with Coca-Cola. When the second call came,
however, he listened.

"I guess the reason I went into law enforcement is the same as the others
in my family. It sounds kind of corny, but we were all born and raised here
and we all love Columbus. This is something we felt like we were born to
do," he said.

Glisson joined the department and, like every other newcomer, he was
assigned to jail duty. Within a few months, he was a deputy.

"I had rookie-itis like everybody else. At first you think you are going to
clear the streets of crime single-handedly. You soon learn," he said.

Glisson had plenty of teachers right in his family. Bobby Glisson, his
uncle, was the founder of the police department's Youth Services
department. After he retired, he was a bailiff at the Government Center. He
died in 2002. It was Uncle Bobby that gave David Glisson advice that he
used long after his mentor was gone.

"My uncle said always treat people like you want to be treated, and never
do anything with your badge on that you wouldn't do with it off. I tried to
live by that and to teach it to the young officers that came in," he said.

Thrived on training

By 1989, drug use in the U.S. had become a legal issue as well as a social
problem. Muscogee County was not immune. Taking a cue from other locales,
the Metro Narcotics Task Force was formed.

Pooling resources, it was composed of eight men representing the police
departments of Columbus and Phenix City and the sheriff's departments of
Muscogee, Harris and Russell counties. County and state lines would mean
nothing to these guys. They could work both sides of the Chattahoochee River.

Then-Sgt. Russell Traino was the leader of the unit. Second in command was
then-Sgt. Ralph Johnson, a Muscogee County sheriff's deputy. They would
depend on grant money, special training and an attitude that they could do
anything.

David Glisson was part of that unit.

"I had the long hair and everything," he said. "But I wouldn't wear the
earring. I had a fake one I could take in and out."

Nothing like this had been done before in this community. Others saw them
as prima donnas, which in many ways they were. No one knew what to make of
this undercover squad -- including old-school officers like Uncle Bobby.

"He was like a lot of others. He didn't like it much at first, but he
finally realized that times were changing," Glisson remembered.

For David Glisson, being part of Metro was a highlight of his career. He
jumped right into it with Traino and the other six.

Traino is now a police major in charge of Investigative Services. Like
Glisson, he looks back on that time with pride.

"It took us two months to get started," Traino said. "They gave us a
dilapidated office in the Government Center. There was nothing there. We
had to appropriate desks and equipment. We had to paint the office
ourselves. We bonded by working together."

With their beards, long hair and blue jeans, they didn't look like other
lawmen but they worked as hard or harder than the old line officers. Traino
was a taskmaster. He put them in the weight room and on the running track.

Though baseball never saw his gifts as an athlete, Glisson thrived on the
training. He became an obsessive worker in the gym and found he even liked
running.

This work was required, for Metro wasn't going to arrest the person buying
a joint. They fished at the deep end of the pond, looking for dealers and
suppliers. They worked in a world that didn't keep banker's hours.

"We were going after people that no one else had ever gone after," Glisson
said.

And it took a special kind of officer.

"It took somebody who wanted to be there, someone willing to spend personal
time away from their families. It was not a typical eight-hour day. Not
only that, you had to be ready to roll in 30 minutes," Traino said.

Glisson was that kind of cop, Traino said.

"He was a team player. If you had to come in at 2 o'clock in the morning,
he came. He was a gung-ho kind of guy, very dedicated."

Glisson also had an unusual trait that endeared him to the man in charge.

"When we were out on the streets, he was very protective of me and
protective of our unit," Traino said.

Glisson insisted on being out front. "Every time an entry was made, he
wanted to be first."

Stress was as much a part of that assignment as the guns they carried. It
was not only the stress that came during a raid or when a suspect was
cornered. It was also the nights when the rush of adrenaline came and the
phone didn't ring.

So, like others, Glisson rotated out of Metro after a couple of years. He
served warrants. He rode patrol. He did some time working in the courts.
But when the department organized its Special Response Team, Glisson raised
his hand. He became the weapons expert, the person others looked to for
pointers.

He also became a teacher, providing marksmanship training for a number of
city officials -- including District Attorney Gray Conger. Weapons were
part of his job but not his life. At home, with four children in and out of
the house, Glisson never kept a gun. Nor did he own one other than the one
he was issued by the county.

"That was the first weapon I ever owned," he said. "My father never owned
one, either. My son, he was a typical boy, he was real curious. I sat him
down and said, 'Now, son, this isn't a toy. This is the real thing. When it
goes up that barrel, you can't take it back.' "

Like soldiers' wives, police wives are a special breed. When their husbands
go to work, they know the reality that he might not come home.

Becky understood his work better than most spouses. She worked for lawyers
Bobby Peters and John Allen -- the first biracial law firm in the city.
Both Peters and Allen moved on to other callings. Peters was a two-term
mayor of Columbus and recently was elected to the Superior Court. Allen
became first a state court judge and then a judge of Superior Court.

"At least we spoke the same language," Becky said, "but we couldn't talk
about things much at home."

"She was working for the enemy," her husband laughed, confessing that he
even had to arrest some of Peters' and Allen's clients.

Worked back from heart attack

As a member of the SRT, Glisson took care of himself. He played softball.
He coached his son in Little League. He was obsessive about pumping iron,
working out in the gym three times a week. Five days a week, he was running.

Then came the heart attack.For Glisson, the waiting continues, and so do
questions about his health. He's no longer that lawman bursting through
doorways or the gung-ho cop protecting his unit.

"He has to sit on the sidelines and be talked about as if he is an object
rather than a human being," Hagler said.

A human being who just wanted to be a cop.